The carriage takes off at a slow pace. As we meander through the city, I feel like I finally have a time when I’m not being bombarded by information and surprises.

Now that they’ve been advised by the king, it seems Itor and Magna feel much more relaxed, as can be told by the slower pace of their walking when coming over to the carriage as well as the slow pace of the carriage itself.

Well, okay. Nicknames aside, after thinking about it more, that guy didn’t seem like he was actually a king. He wasn’t sitting in the throne, and the throne itself didn’t even seem to have been made for him. He’s certainly someone important, judging by the fur robe he wore that I haven’t seen on anyone else, but I don’t feel like he’s a monarch.

I didn’t see any royal family - granted, they could have simply not been present at the time - but the table had eight seats, only four of which ended up being filled today. I feel like he’s part of a counsel of some kind.

As for why the other members of the counsel weren’t there, maybe he was the representative of the department responsible for me, or he, in some way, specializes in whatever was necessary for the conversation regarding me.

He might also just not be a monarch in the traditional sense, or something like that. He could be a religious leader, like I said before, or he could lead some sort of science department.

Those statues give off the idea that that was a place of significance, and they felt religious in nature, so I feel like it wouldn’t be a science center, but science and religion can get kind of muddled together depending on the culture.

I wish I had some sort of way to interpret all of the symbols I keep seeing. Not just the letters, either. Obviously understanding the written language would be nice, but even just some way to recognize insignia would be immensely helpful.

I have a theory that the insignia the guards wear on their undershirt in some sort of governmental symbol, while the symbols I keep seeing in a circle pattern - the ones on the shop sign with the powder, and that were also above the ‘government insignia’ in the place we met the king - are a religious symbol.

That theory could be totally wrong, of course, it’s really just relying on my knowledge of other cultures and applying it to this one as well, but it’s the best I really have at the moment.

The carriage seems to be heading for - judging by the movement of the sun - the eastern side of the wall. We pass close by the sand pit that the city seems to be built around. I see what I saw before, raised decks going over the sand, wooden boardwalks extending over the massive pit, but this time I see a couple people walking down one of them.

An adult man and a young girl, probably father and daughter. They’re dragging what seems to be a canoe out on one of the “docks.” It seems like they’re talking. I strain my ears to listen to what they’re saying.

The little girl seems to be asking a question. The father gives a patient response, making a gesture with his hand. He holds it out flat, palm facing the ground, and slowly moves it downward, holds it there for a second, then slowly moves it upward. He repeats this motion as he talks. After they drag the canoe out to the end of the dock, they both sit down.

The carriage keeps moving, and a building blocks my line of sight so that I can’t see the people anymore. I can, however, more clearly see the sand pit. It steadily heads downward as it goes further out. There are some rock formations poking out of the sand, and generally a few dune formations, but it clearly trends downward.

There’s a slight mist outside, so I can’t see where it actually ends. Still, it must be enormous; I can easily see multiple miles out and don’t see any sign of it stopping or even going back up.

I look back at the street. We seem to be in some sort of residential district; before, I believe we were in a commercial one, and then some sort of governmental one. These houses are constructed similarly to the commercial district buildings. They’re made of rough stone and brown, untreated wood. I see many more children around here than before.

There are a few kids out in the sand picking seashells off the ground. I see one stringing them together into a necklace.

That’s interesting. If it’s common practice to take seashells out of that place, how are there still so many? And, honestly, what’s the point of bringing a boat out there? Is the water just so clear that I can’t see it?

No, that doesn’t make sense. Water on sand is always going to have at least a little opacity to it. Even a slight wave or tide - or just an animal swimming around - would stir up the sand and make it clearly dirty.

The only reasonable idea I can come up with is that the tides in this “ocean” are so extreme that the water literally disappears for miles at a time - and apparently comes back quickly, considering there are people out there with boats on the docks.

I also see no decrease in the number of those weird plantless flower pots I saw when I first exited the building. They’re trough-shaped - around five feet long and a bit over a foot wide, and completely full of dirt. There seems to be one every few dozen feet or so.

As far as I can tell, there’s nothing else in them. I haven’t seen a single plant growing out of any of them, but I guess they could technically just be a very recent addition to the city and the seeds inside haven’t sprouted yet. Still, it’s strange. I wonder what they could be there for.

Some time passes, and we begin to get close to the wall. We’ve been going on some sort of main road, so we haven’t turned at any point, just gone in a straight line toward the eastern part of the small stone wall surrounding the city.

I can’t see the “ocean” anymore, though. It must be slightly curved and move away from the road after all this distance. We’re still in the residential area, but it’s noticeably more run-down. The houses are smaller, the clothes are more tattered, and it smells worse.

As we get out closer to the wall, I also notice some large parts of land being taken up by farms. I don’t see any farm animals, but I do see fields of crops growing, none of which I recognize.

Most of them are just leaves sprouting from the ground, but I see a couple that are more distinct. There’s some sort of crop that grows on a wooden trellis and sprouts a long, thin, orange fruit. It looks like something you would get if you were to take an eggplant and combine it with a carrot.

I also see what seem to be some fruit trees; well, they’re sort of like trees. They’re really small, like the size of a somewhat large bush. The tops of them would probably only barely pass the top of my head. And their trunks split almost immediately instead of growing up for a while before splitting.

The fruits coming off of them are small, like blueberries. But they’re all multicolored. Each tree has red, blue, yellow, green, and many more colors. Those trees specifically seem really common. I see lots of fields that are just completely full of them.

Itor and Magna have been making idle conversation occasionally throughout this trip. They don’t seem to be awkward around each other, and, from what I can tell, the conversation flows just fine.

I feel like they’ve probably been coworkers for a while, and might even be friends outside of work. So in the case that one of them is in trouble, the other will likely defend them, even if it isn’t the logical thing to do.

That’s important to know; it’s entirely possible that, even though I seem to be important, they may prioritize the other’s life over mine if we’re both about to die. It’s never good to give someone the benefit of the doubt when something this important is on the line.

Soon enough, after about an hour and a half of riding, we make it to the wall. Judging by how fast the ground was moving, I’d say we were going slightly faster than walking speed, so maybe five miles per hour?

We started out around the middle of the city from what I could tell, so that means the full length of the city would be somewhere near fifteen miles. I’ll have to remember that. That seemed to be the long side, though. The shorter side - the one between the wall and the desert-ocean - seemed much smaller.

The wall itself isn’t incredibly high, maybe ten feet or so, and it looks to be only a couple feet thick, so I doubt it’s made for people to walk along. Still, the circumference of a fifteen foot diameter circle is really long; if I remember my equations correctly, I believe it would be somewhere around fifty miles.

Even if half of it has been cut off and replaced with that sand pit, it must have taken a lot of time and resources to construct. I wonder where they’re getting all of this stone? It seems to be the main building material, but I haven’t seen any mountains, mines, or even people with digging equipment.

We approach a gate flanked by two guards. It’s made largely of wood, but has lots of steel bars running along it as well, I’d assume for the purpose of reinforcement. Itor and Magna have a short conversation with them, and then the guards begin opening the gate.

They remove three iron bars that were securing the two sections of the door together, and push them open. It clearly takes a lot of effort to do this. They motion for us to come through, still holding the doors open. It seems that they close automatically.

With that, the carriage begins moving again, and we begin to walk through the gate. I’m both terrified and exhilarated at the thought of seeing the outside world and the monstrosities it may hold.